The USA Today reported that a recent SHRM Survey indicated the Average Time to Fill a job is 42 days according to their Human Capital Benchmark Report. I work with many clients who look to improve their processes for finding candidates. Almost all of them would love to have an average time to fill that is LT 50 days. I really wonder what was used as the determining factor of when a job was “filled”. I have tried to find this determining factor, but alas was not able to.
Thus for the purposes of this discussion, I will use my definition of the “time to fill” metric which is the point at which no one is performing the job to when a person arrives at work to perform the job. To truly fill a position, one has to obtain approval for the position to be filled, post the position, screen candidates, interview candidates, perform background checks and negotiate offer terms and start dates. That is a lot to get done in 42 days!
At HRchitect, we have helped our clients become more efficient through the use of CRM tools for candidate sourcing and nurturing as well as improving internal processes for approving positions to be filled. Most achieve a job offer within about 40 days of a position being opened, but that does not mean the position is actually “filled” as in a body now performing the work.
In my opinion, the “filled” metric is an “HR Feel Good” metric. It says: yes, our recruiters can find a person fast. It says nothing to the business about being able to find a person who is proficient at their job, as “filling” a position does not mean the job is being performed as it needs to be. We all know that even though one may know how to generally perform a job, learning the processes and culture of a new organization is needed before one can truly be considered proficient, which takes several weeks or months depending on the job and the organization.
So I guess my question to you is So What? So what does it mean to actually “fill a job”? Is it a metric that is relevant to the business? Is this a metric that is meaningful and should be tracked?
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